September 8, 2010: easy day at school -- only three classes

September 8, 2010: In case you're wondering how I fared last night with the pulsating music emanating just a short way from my suite, good news: someone must have come up to tell them to turn it off, because at 9:15 the music stopped and it was quiet the way it used to be. I found out that the party was the back to school party that all universities hold the beginning of school -- just like in the US.

Since my first class was at 7:45 that meant I had to leave for school before the cafeteria opened for breakfast. I had a cup of tea in my room and on the way -- I confess I have fallen by the wayside -- I broke down and bought a delicious looking strudel at one of those pastry shops in the subway. It cost only 70 cents, but the center was filled with two fillings: lemon and currant in separate portions of the strudel! Was it good! I was so impressed I bought another pastry at the stop were I got off to walk to school. That one was a powder sugared pastry that was very flaky and equally delicious. Hate to say it but I'm afraid I'll have to resort to that again tomorrow since my class begins at 7:45 again. So much for my paunch which seems to have subsided a bit since I do so much walking now.

When I arrived at school, the form master for 9B was in the office and she said that she was planning on taking the boys to Vienna for a day in December and asked if Ruth and I would be interested in going with them. Of course I agreed. These boys are really lots of fun and it would be great to share the beauty of Vienna with them all.

My classes for the day went much as my classes have gone the rest of the week, so there's really nothing unusual to report there, but I did take some pictures of one of the classes I haven't shown you before.

This morning at school, I met Fekete Kati, the head of the English department who told me that it was ridiculous for me to be running back and forth between classes to get keys for the classrooms, so she said that they would order a set of keys for me for all the classrooms I teach in!  How nice! She also told me that she had located an apartment for me to look at on Friday, so that's the news there. Don't hold your breath. Also, while we were talking, the form master of 9E, the class where my two subclasses are a bit noisy approached us and told Kati that the students told her "the students love me". Guess that's nice to hear, but I was a bit hard on them in class, so I guess the kids figure my bark is worse than the bite. 

During the day, I had to go for keys to the classrooms and I've started to become more sophisticated in saying the numbers of the rooms in Hungarian; instead of saying each number one by one, I actually give her the number using hundred, etc. (e.g., one hundred eighty-five instead of one - eight - five). She was really pleased and each time she gives me a key she repeats the number for me just to give me extra practice in hearing it spoken correctly. Today one of my classes was on the second floor and it was interesting to see what was up there. Among other things, I saw that the windows leading up the stairs were stained glass.

Stained glass window at Ujpesti High School

Upstairs I also saw some more pictures showing graduates of the school in years past. One presentation presented the students in holographs. I don't think my picture of this is very clear, but that's what it is of.

Graduating class picture presented in holograph form

Today I met Hajni of CETP to go get my insurance card. Unfortunately, since I don't yet have an apartment, I'm not allowed to get the insurance card, so I'll have to wait in line for this again. Talk about bureaucracy, you'd never believe the piles of papers that have to be submitted for anything in Hungary. Hajni later gave me a drive back to my suite and on the way she told me about the horrendous piles of papers she has to submit every month just to document the tax situation for CETP -- four hours worth every month. And they're not done on-line -- you have to enter the same bank account numbers on 14 forms! She said it used to be worse under the previous Hungarian administration when they had more forms to submit. She also said that the government almost confiscated her car because she had not submitted a form she knew nothing about. She ended up submitting it within the required eight days so that she didn't lose her car, but the paperwork regarding her car was never cleared for three months afterwards!  It's really interesting in talking to my Hungarian colleagues that they're subjected to piles of no value added paperwork which really gets on their nerves. For example, we have until September 10th to submit our syllabi for the entire year. Fortunately, the lead English teachers are doing this for me, and when I asked what I'm supposed to be teaching according to the syllabus, they all tell me, "Don't worry about it. No one ever even looks at the syllabus after it's submitted. You just teach what you want according to your own schedule. We only submit the syllabus because it's required." And you wouldn't believe the meticulous records that each form teacher has to document for each student. Then there's the master book for each form teacher where each of us teachers writes in the book what we have taught for the day for each class. This usually amounts to my writing "Describing people" for my entry since that's what the dialogs I'm teaching are about. In talking with my Hungarian colleagues, they all tell me that they've kind of become complacent about the government taking so much away in taxes (after all, what can they do about it?), but the one thing they seem to value most of all is their time, since that's something the government cannot manage for them, and they're upset when they have to spend so much time tending to the bureaucratic no value added details rather than use their time for things they want to do. On the whole, though, I've been very happy talking with them all about their family lives, what life was like before 2/3 of Hungary was taken from them and given to the neighboring countries (you can still feel the outrage of them when they discuss this), and their adaptability. It's very humbling taking for granted all the freedom we Americans have when compared to what the Hungarians have had to face.


For dinner, I decided that I'd eat out. I went to a nearby pub and asked the waiter between two dishes. He suggested the beef dish so I ordered that. And am I glad I did!! It was delicious. It tasted much like my recipe for Hungarian goulash although the name of what I ordered is "vorosboros marhaporkolt piritott scuszaval" (I've omitted the umlots, accent egues, and other markings in the Hungarian alphabet because I don't know how to input them into the blog.) I guess from the title, you can see why I'm not exactly speaking Hungarian very fluently. And you can see that although it sure tasted like the goulash I make, the word "goulash" is not even in the food description. Some day I'm going to ask a Hungarian cook to tell me how to make this dish. As I said, it was delicious!